I love the smell of dead mouse in the morning.
Actually, no.
So, we live in a Cape Cod (slanty roof on second floor/no attic), and our bedroom is the entire second floor of the house. We've known for a while we had critters in the area between our bedroom ceiling and the roof, but the exterminators haven't been able to figure out how they're getting in. No big deal, we thought - it's not cool to hear he/she/them scurrying above the bed, but, whatever, we have no objection to interspecies friendship.
Until they DIE.
Sunday or Monday night I heard some particularly loud critters running around the attic space, and it kind of freaked me out, since we have recessed lights right over the bed and I have these nightmares about them falling through the holes. So I slept downstairs on the couch to not hear them do laps around our house.
Anyway, I think no more of that until I get home Tuesday, open the front door to this rank smell, kind of like garbage that hasn't been taken out forever. Ryan confirms it's been like that since he got home and, lo and behold, it seems to be coming from the ceiling. It seems that one of our friends the track star critters has met an untimely end, but has decided to do so in such a way that we have no idea where he is, and cannot get to him without randomly cutting holes in our wall or ceiling. JOY.
We had the exterminators come yesterday but they a) can't find where the critters are coming in) and b) can't remove the carcass without randomly making holes in our walls or ceiling. Their advice: wait it out.
But the smell was even worse last night. Even better: flies are now queuing up like it's a party. Ryan is furious; I'm grossed out and convinced all our clothing (upstairs, natch) and my beloved many hundreds of dollars bedding is going to absorb the eau de dead mouse and I am never going to smell fresh and clean again. Eventually I did some more internet research and Ryan went to the drug store to get fly killer and smell masker. I put A&D ointment on my nose; he sprayed the house; and we slept downstairs, me on the living room couch and he in the empty shell of a future nursery we say is for "guests".
And, thankfully, whether because our noses no longer work, o because the PureAyre enzyme stuff is good, it isn't quite as bad. I have a feeling it's becuase we've grown used to it, but if we keep the normally olfactored away from our den of rank, then maybe we can make it through the Dead Mouse Incident of Aught Eight.
So, we live in a Cape Cod (slanty roof on second floor/no attic), and our bedroom is the entire second floor of the house. We've known for a while we had critters in the area between our bedroom ceiling and the roof, but the exterminators haven't been able to figure out how they're getting in. No big deal, we thought - it's not cool to hear he/she/them scurrying above the bed, but, whatever, we have no objection to interspecies friendship.
Until they DIE.
Sunday or Monday night I heard some particularly loud critters running around the attic space, and it kind of freaked me out, since we have recessed lights right over the bed and I have these nightmares about them falling through the holes. So I slept downstairs on the couch to not hear them do laps around our house.
Anyway, I think no more of that until I get home Tuesday, open the front door to this rank smell, kind of like garbage that hasn't been taken out forever. Ryan confirms it's been like that since he got home and, lo and behold, it seems to be coming from the ceiling. It seems that one of our friends the track star critters has met an untimely end, but has decided to do so in such a way that we have no idea where he is, and cannot get to him without randomly cutting holes in our wall or ceiling. JOY.
We had the exterminators come yesterday but they a) can't find where the critters are coming in) and b) can't remove the carcass without randomly making holes in our walls or ceiling. Their advice: wait it out.
But the smell was even worse last night. Even better: flies are now queuing up like it's a party. Ryan is furious; I'm grossed out and convinced all our clothing (upstairs, natch) and my beloved many hundreds of dollars bedding is going to absorb the eau de dead mouse and I am never going to smell fresh and clean again. Eventually I did some more internet research and Ryan went to the drug store to get fly killer and smell masker. I put A&D ointment on my nose; he sprayed the house; and we slept downstairs, me on the living room couch and he in the empty shell of a future nursery we say is for "guests".
And, thankfully, whether because our noses no longer work, o because the PureAyre enzyme stuff is good, it isn't quite as bad. I have a feeling it's becuase we've grown used to it, but if we keep the normally olfactored away from our den of rank, then maybe we can make it through the Dead Mouse Incident of Aught Eight.